To help communities in advancing their understanding and support of lead poisoning prevention, the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) will award mini-grants of up to $5,000 to 10 or more communities across the country to plan and host lead poisoning prevention events. These grants are intended to help gather community members and decision-makers to engage in a dialogue around actions that can advance local lead poisoning prevention efforts.

Eligibility Requirements

Who is eligible?
Government, education, public housing, nonprofit, and tribal organizations may apply as long as they are based in the United States. For-profit organizations are not eligible to apply for funding.

May a community submit more than one application?
A community may submit more than one application; however, a community may not receive funding for more than one event, even if there are different primary applicants.

What types of activities can the funding support?
Funding should be used to support community-based events that have a clear focus on lead poisoning prevention and response. Priority will be given to communities that demonstrate a need for the funding, have a clear plan in place for using the funding, and can articulate the anticipated impact of the funding. Events may have a broad lead poisoning prevention theme or be focused on a specific aspect of lead poisoning prevention and response, but events that have a clear plan for including decision-makers or effecting positive change will be given priority.

Examples of events include but are not limited to:

Coalition-building meeting

Press conference or event

School/childcare center awareness events (e.g., especially those that include free blood lead testing or distribution of free lead test kits for dust, paint, water, or soil)

Town hall event involving parents of lead exposed children and local policy-makers, to discuss lead prevention strategies in your community

Communities may apply to use funding for an event that has already been planned.

Events must occur by November 30, 2017, and should plan to promote the forthcoming report, 10 Policies to Prevent and Respond to Childhood Lead Exposure. Copies of the report will be made available to successful applicants.

Note: Funding may NOT be used to support attempts to influence legislation through direct or grassroots lobbying. For example, funds cannot be used for signage that endorses pending legislation or an elected official.

How will communities be selected?
Applications will be scored according to the following criteria:

Clarity of plan for event (5 points):Does the applicant have a clearly articulated plan? Is the plan reasonable? Do they have experience in successfully hosting similar events?

Demonstrated need (5 points):Does the applicant’s community have a significant burden of lead poisoning or risk factors associated with lead poisoning? Or are there disparities within the community or specific subpopulations at greater risk of lead poisoning? Is there a gap in services or messaging or political will that the proposed work will help to address?

Potential impact of the event (5 points):What is the potential impact or local significance of this event? Does the applicant clearly articulate what outcomes the event should achieve? Will it reach a substantial or influential portion of the community? Will it help to influence or catalyze the development of policy, partnerships, funding, or services?

Relevance to prevention of and response to childhood lead poisoning (5 points):Does the applicant have a clear focus on one or more aspects of lead poisoning prevention or response to childhood lead poisoning?

The selection committee will also consider diversity of geography, local community capacity, focus area, and other factors in selecting communities for funding, but these items will not be scored.

Applications will be reviewed by a selection committee comprised of staff from the National Center for Healthy Housing, Trust for America’s Health, Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Members of a selection committee will review each application using the scoring criteria articulated above, then meet to discuss and finalize the list of communities selected for funding.

What information do I need to apply?
You can preview all of the application questions here. You’ll need to complete your application in one session online, so we recommend that you prepare your responses in advance.

When are applications due?
Applications may be submitted at any time but are due no later than 5 p.m. ET on Friday, July 28, 2017.

Where can I get more information?
More information about the project is available from The Pew Charitable Trust’s website. Contact Jo Miller (jmiller@nchh.org) or Sarah Goodwin (sgoodwin@nchh.org). As applicants submit questions, we will post them and the answers below.

Thank you and best of luck to all who applied for a Lead Poisoning Awareness Community Mini-Grant. The application submittal period is now closed. Applicants will be notified of their status by the end of August.

Questions about the Lead Poisoning Awareness Community Mini-Grants

Can I get an embargoed copy of the10 Policies to Prevent and Respond to Childhood Lead Exposure report?Embargoed copies of the report are not available as previously anticipated. The grant announcement has been updated to reflect this change. Successful applicants will be expected to promote the report during their events but do not have to use it as the basis for planning the event.

When will the 10 Policies to Prevent and Respond to Childhood Lead Exposure report be available?We anticipate that the report will be released in August or early September 2017. Applicants will be notified of the report’s release.

When will the grant awards be announced?

The award announcements are scheduled for the last week of August.

Can I just send you my application as a PDF?The grant submission is online only. We cannot accept your application in PDF format. You can fill out the application here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LPPGrants. There’s a button at the bottom of this page to begin your application.

Can we submit letters of support from our partners?

We don’t have a mechanism for collecting letters of support, since they are not required; however, you may indicate that they’re available upon request in your application if you would like the review committee to know that they exist.

Should the proposed project be focused on a single community event, or can the project include a series of events?The proposed project may be a single event or a series of related events.

We host awareness events under a CLPPP grant. Are these events eligible for a mini-grant? Communities may apply to use funding for an event that has already been planned. Note that hese grants are intended to help gather community members and decision-makers to engage in a dialogue around actions that can advance local lead poisoning prevention efforts. Events may have a broad lead poisoning prevention theme or be focused on a specific aspect of lead poisoning prevention and response, but events that have a clear plan for including decision-makers or effecting positive change will be given priority.

Would hosting EPA Renovation, Repair, and Painting (RRP) courses for local contractors be a fundable project?We encourage community awareness and capacity-building around RRP. According to the grant language, “These grants are intended to help gather community members and decision-makers to engage in a dialogue around actions that can advance local lead poising prevention efforts.” Successful applications will demonstrate a clear plan to achieve this goal. While the examples provided above are not a comprehensive list, events should also plan to promote the forthcoming report, 10 Policies to Prevent and Respond to Childhood Lead Exposure.

How is “community” defined as it relates to communities submitting more than one application? A large metropolitan area might be served by both a city office and a county office that are completely different agencies and jurisdictions serving the same general area. Would these be considered separate communities? We would consider the city and county offices as separate entities; however, if both entities submit separate grant proposals with the respective projects targeting the same or overlapping geographic area(s), they would not be considered individual communities, and the more robust application would be selected. Note also that individual entities may submit more than one proposal, though only one proposal per applicant or community would be selected.
Must we have 501(c)(3) status to apply for a mini-grant?No. Government, education, public housing, nonprofit, and tribal organizations may apply as long as they are based in the United States. Other organizations that aren’t for-profit are also welcome to apply, but will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. We will not grant funds to individuals or for-profit organizations.

Can any of the lead poisoning mini-grant funds be used toward staff salaries for the event?Yes, funding can be allocated for staff salaries to support eligible grant activities.

Can we use a community survey as part of this grant to assist our efforts with follow-up lead educational events held with community health providers or policy-makers?A community survey may be eligible, provided that the survey and the results are used to support community-based events that have a clear focus on lead poisoning prevention and response and that the events themselves are held by November 30.

I have an investigator who’ll be applying for the mini-grant. Are there any guidelines relating to which costs are allowable or not allowable? Does your organization provide indirect cost? If so, what’s the rate?Allowable costs should be reasonable and justifiable costs for eligible activities. Funding may not be used to support attempts to influence legislation through direct or indirect lobbying. If your organization has an established indirect cost rate (facilities and administration, F&A), you may include that rate. If you do not have an F&A, indirect costs should be itemized.

I’m having trouble filling in the survey boxes. What should I do?For issues with SurveyMonkey, review the help page for taking surveys. Most issues seem to be related to a network or firewall that may be blocking some SurveyMonkey domains. You can add SurveyMonkey domains and subdomains to your whitelist so that they aren’t blocked.

Question 9 asks to describe how we would use the $5000. We have reviewed the types of activities the funding can support. In our response, are you asking us to summarize the cost of the proposed event and not to submit a detailed line-item budget?Yes. Please summarize the cost of the project(s) and how you will use the mini-grant.